Bettina cranks the Wrangler’s engine but hears only the crisp click of a starter with a dead battery.
She jumps back out and grabs the Model 12. Her spark jumps to flame then fire. She’s more than pissed. Slams the door shut and runs toward the white SUV, which by now is out of sight.
She makes okay time across the parking lot and starts down Rimcrest toward Alta Laguna Boulevard, wobbling in the low-heeled fashion boots she’d worn to be slimed by Rod Foster, the Winchester balanced in her hands. But she’s fast losing hope because the white SUV has to be at least half a mile downhill by now, and her balance is bad in the boots, and Alta Laguna Boulevard is steep as hell and because running around in public with a shotgun is really, really dumb.
So she slows to a stop, breathing deeply, the shotgun butt to the ground and her hands on the barrel for something to lean on.
A guy coming up the road in a convertible slows and studies her. Two women in a Mercedes coming down from the park stop, and the driver’s window goes down and Bettina meets the woman’s stare, then the window goes back up and the sedan rolls widely around her, headed back to town.
She’s traipsing back uphill, brimming with fury and adrenaline, when she hears the siren. She knows whom it’s for but what the hell can she do now — run away from the cops with her shotgun?
She lays it down and stands panting on the shoulder of the road. Raises her hands as the cruiser approaches, siren off but the lights still on, flashing in the afternoon light.
“Police! Do not move. Do not move!”
Bettina just nods, hands still up, wondering if breathing counts as moving, telling herself there’s no way this can turn into a cop shooting — she’s just a local citizen out for a run with a loaded 12-gauge shotgun, right?
The two officers come crabbing out of the car, crouched low and weapons drawn. A man and a woman. Bettina recognizes both faces but doesn’t know their names. Susie, maybe. Their gear jangles and the red and blue lights of the cruiser flash behind them.
“Step away from the weapon!” yells the man.
She does.
“Down on one knee, keep your hands raised!” he commands.
The shoulder gravel bites through her $300 suit pants.
“Bettina Blazak?” asks the woman.
“Yes, Susie?”
“Don’t move,” the man calls out. “Keep your hands up!”
He sidles out wide around her and she hears him come up from behind.
“Put your hands behind your back,” he says. “Slow now.”
Bettina lowers her arms. Feels his grip, then the tight cinch of the plastic.
“Bettina, what’s going on here?” Suzie asks, holstering her gun. “Are you all right?”
“They stole Felix! Do a BOLO on him! Set up roadblocks on Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon Road!”
“Well, maybe, but...,” says Suzie.
Then a fresh storm of tears hits Bettina. She’s not just humiliated by her own circumstances, but she knows — just knows — that those two assholes have probably already killed her dog, and Animal Control will probably find him in a ditch off Laguna Canyon Road when he starts to draw vultures, so Bettina cares not one bit what these cops think of her or what they’re going to do with her.
“Please go after him! Find Felix! He’s the famous one from the Coastal Eddy show. I’ll walk to the cop house and turn myself in!”
“Is that your gun?” asks Suzie.
“I tried to make the Olympics with it. Can I stand up now?”
The man helps her up with a firm hand on her upper arm.
Bettina thanks him and bows her head and squeezes her eyelids closed and prays that this is not happening, has not happened, will not happen — her wonderful, loving, goofy, inspiring, historied, funny-eared Felix taken by cartel killers — and she, the great journalist Bettina Blazak, headed for jail.
34
An hour later Bettina is delivered back to Alta Laguna Park in a PD cruiser driven by Officer Susie Ortega. Bettina’s hands are still shaking, her Model 12 locked in the trunk.
“I hope the BOLO for the dog and the Pacifico guy helps,” says Ortega, opening the trunk and handing Bettina her gun and an evidence bag with the shells. “It’s all we can do without the plates, or a good description of the SUV.”
“White. Late model. Dark windows,” says Bettina, dazed and tired of repeating herself. The surge and ebb of adrenaline has left her exhausted, like after a high-velocity bicycle ride, or surfing a six-foot day at Brooks Street.
“Don’t be running around town with that gun again, Bettina. You could have killed someone. Or yourself. Are you going to do a story on this?”
“Absolutely yes, I am.”
“I’ll talk on camera if you need me to.”
“I’m going to find Felix. My story’s going to have a happy ending.”
“Be realistic.”
After Officer Ortega drives off, Bettina is not surprised to find the hood of her Wrangler ajar and the battery cables disconnected. She gets a wrench from the toolbox and hooks them back up, a sudden orange pop scaring the hell out of her and bringing fresh tears to her eyes.
She drives all over Laguna looking for Felix. Downtown, south and north, the hills, Dodge City and Canyon Acres, and Stan Oaks and Sun Valley. Can’t believe how many late-model white SUVs there are, and how many dogs. How many U-turns and dead ends and fruitless drive-bys.
Gets her binoculars from home, trades her wobbly boots for athletic shoes, then takes Laguna Canyon Road to the 73 South, which takes her to Interstate 5 and the border crossing at San Ysidro.
In the dark, Bettina sits in a pay-to-park lot near the crossing lanes, scanning the cars heading into Mexico through a tall chain-link fence topped with gleaming coils of concertina. The binoculars are good ones and she feels like she’s looking at these people from the back seats of their cars, not a hundred feet away. They talk on phones or with each other; they smoke cigarettes and pick their noses. Only one bouncy dog in a Chevy. No Pacifico ball cap. The powerful lights blaze down from their standards and the vehicles belch exhaust but hardly move.
And really, she thinks: just what the hell are you going to do if you spot him?
She knows she won’t. Knows she’ll probably never see him again. Faith unrewarded is a bitterness to the soul. Her dad used to say that. Much bitterness ahead, she thinks.
She feels the thump of her heart, heavy and broken.
She hasn’t felt this bad since the frat party on Balboa Island, when Jason Graves ripped away her happiness and her trust.
He’s still not done with me, she thinks. Hates herself for that as much as him.
And realizes that now, exactly right now — emptied of hope, filled with helplessness, and fueled by nothing that resembles reason — is the perfect time to get her revenge on Jason, forgive herself, and set things right.
She parks the Jeep across the street from Inland Frontier Realty in Anza. It’s cold and late. She downs her 7-Eleven hot dogs, Funyons, and a decaf.
The back of the Wrangler is big enough for her to stretch out, so she takes off her shoes and gets into the sleeping bag she always carries. It’s not exactly comfortable, but the folding pad helps.
Felix’s hair is everywhere, which weighs heavily on her. In the weak dome light she counts the money thrust upon her by Pacifico Man — $10,000 in hundreds. She can’t understand why El Gordo gave her this instead of killing her.
Her phone pings and it’s a message from Strickland, saying he had a great time with her and Joe — let’s do that again soon.
She texts back that Felix was kidnapped by two of El Gordo’s killers up at Alta Laguna this afternoon. That she’s talked to DEA and they’re sending agents to Laguna to search for him. Says she’s fine, don’t worry. But doesn’t have the spirit to talk to Strickland when he immediately calls back.